The latest forms come with some minor changes to last year formats, such as Removal of FBT schedule, Improvised ITR-1 (Saral II) format, etc

Introduction to ITR Forms:
The ITR forms starts from ITR 1 (Saral II) to ITR 7 (as of 2010-11 AY). In the form, individuals and HUFs will be required to furnish information with regard to transactions that are reported through annual information returns (AIR). Large transactions like investment in real estate and mutual funds running into lakhs is automatically reported to the department by banks and other authorities using the investor's permanent account number (PAN).

Similarly, large expenditure incurred by an individual is also reported to the department through AIR. Therefore, if an individual tries to hide his income he can be caught through AIR reporting from various agencies, a tax official said. What the new stipulation does is that it makes it mandatory for the tax assesses themselves to submit the same information to the IT department. A senior finance ministry official said that the earlier idea was to use the cash flow statement to get information both on the source of funds as well as expenditure.

For individuals, the four forms, Saral II (ITR - 1), ITR-2, ITR-3 and ITR-4, will continue to remain.

Companies also have the same two forms ITR 6 and 7. Either should be used as per applicability. The Firms, AOP and BOI’s should go for only Form ITR - 5. This has made all earlier confusions on status to form relation ZERO.

ITR-8, which was Exclusive Return on Fringe Benefits has been omitted, as FBT has been abolished.